Apple Is Gearing Up To Sell 45 Million iPads Next Year -- That's ~$30 Billion Of Revenue

Still don't think the iPad is an
absolutely earth-shaking blockbuster hit?

Apple is
gearing up to sell 45 million of them next year, says Ticonderoga
Securities analyst Brian White who just chatted with supply-chain
vendors in China and Taiwan (via
Elizabeth Woyke at Forbes).

A couple of months ago, we mentioned that hedge-fund manager Jeff
Matthews expected Apple to
eventually sell 50 million iPads a year--a forecast that, in
some corners, was greeted with howls of derision. Based on this
latest news, it seems like the 50-million year may come sooner
than expected.

45 million iPads, by the way, is about $30 billion of revenue. To
put that in perspective, that's almost as much revenue as the
entire company generated in 2008. Not bad for a product
that didn't exist six months ago.